Circumstances of Resignation from the Iskra Editorial Board

Published:Published in the pamphletCommentary on the Minutes of the Second Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad, Geneva, 1904.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      publisher??,pubdate??,

      Moscow,Volume 7,

      pages193-198.Translated:Fineberg AbrahamTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2002

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Geneva, February 20, 1904

DearComrades,

Asyour pamphlet touches on the circumstances which induced me to
      resign from theIskraeditorial board, I would request you to
      find space in the Appendix for this reply of mine to Comrade
      Plekhanov’s letter of January 29, 1904, to Comrade Martov, published
      in Martov’s pamphlet on combating the “state of siege”.

ComradePlekhanov finds that the statement of the case in my letter to
      the editors isinaccurate.However, he has not made, nor
      could he have made, asingle correction of fact.He has
      merely supplemented my account with aninaccurateversion of
      private conversations I had with him.

Generallyspeaking, to quote private conversations is, I consider, a
      sure sign that serious arguments are lacking. I still hold the opinion
      so recently held by Comrade Plekhanov in reference to Comrade
      Martov’s accounts of private conversations (League Minutes, p. 134),
      namely, that it is scarcely possible for such conversations to be
      “reproduced accurately”, and that
      “controversy” regarding them“leads
      nowhere”.

Butsince Comrade Plekhanov does cite our private conversations, I
      consider myself entitled to explain them and amplify, particularly as
      these conversations took place in the presence of third persons.

Thefirst conversation, in which Comrade Plekhanov said that he had

			       decided[1]to
      resign if I absolutely refused toagree to co-optation, took place on the evening of the day the
      League Congress ended and the following morning, in the presence
      of two members of the Party Council. The conversation revolved
      around concessions to the opposition. Plekhanov insisted that
      concessions were essential, for he felt certain that the
      opposition would not obey any decision of the Party Council and
      that a complete split of the Party might take place at any
      moment. I insisted that, after what had happened at the League,
      after the measures taken at its Congress by the representative
      of the Central Committee (each of which Comrade Plekhanov had
      taken part in discussing and had fully approved), it was
      impossible to yield to anarchistic individualism, and that the
      formation of a separate writers’ group (which I had repeatedly
      declared in conversation with Plekhanov, and contrary to his own
      opinion, to be quite permissible) need not necessarily imply a
      split. When the upshot of the conversation was that one of us
      would have to resign, I at once said that I would do so, not
      wishing to hamper Plekhanov in his attempts to settle the
      conflict and avoid what he considered would be a split.

ComradePlekhanov is so amiable towards me now as to find no other
      motive for my action than the most cowardly evasiveness. In order to
      paint this characteristic of mine in the liveliest colours, Comrade
      Plekhanov quotes me as saying: “Everybody will say that Lenin
      must be wrong if even Plekhanov disagrees with him."

Thatis laying the colours on thick, no doubt about it! So thick, in
      fact, that, all unnoticed by Comrade Plekhanov, the result is a patent
      absurdity. If I had been convinced that “everybody” would
      consider Plekhanov right (as he modestly thinks to himself), and had
      thought it necessary to reckon with the opinion of this everybody,
      then, obviously, I would never have ventured to disagree with
      Plekhanov, I would have followed him in this instance too. In his
      desire to present my conduct in the most unprepossessing light and
      ascribe it to the most ignominious motives, he fathers on mea motivedevoid of all sense.I am supposed to have been so
      afraid of disagreeing with Plekhanov in anything that— I did
      disagree with him. It doesn’t hold water, this argument
      of Comrade Plekhanov’s.

Actually,my idea was that it would be better for me to resign, for
      otherwise my dissenting opinion would hamper Plekhanov’sattemptsto secure peace. I did not want to ham per those
      attempts—perhaps we might in fact agree on peace terms—but
      I considered it impossible to assume responsibility for an editorial
      board on which an 6migr  circle imposed candidatesin this
      way.

Afew days later I did go with a certain Council member to see
      Plekhanov, and our talk took the following course:

"Youknow," said Plekhanov, “there are some wives who are
      so quarrelsome that it’s best to give way to them in order to avoid
      hysterics and an unsavoury row in public."

“Perhapsso," I replied, “but in giving way you
      must take care to leave yourself strong enough to prevent an even
      bigger ’row’."

"Well,but by resigning you surrender everything," said
      Plekhanov.

"Notalways," I rejoined, and cited the case of Chamberlain. My
      idea was one I have also expressed in print:
      should Plekhanov succeed in securing a peace acceptable to the
      majority, in whose ranks he had fought so long and so vigorously, then
      I would not start war either; if he should not succeed, I reserved to
      myself freedom of action, so as to denounce the “quarrelsome
      wife” ifevenPlekhanov could not calm and pacify her.

Itwas during this conversation that I told Plekhanov (who did not yet
      know the opposition’s terms) of my “decision” to join the
      Central Committee (I could “decide” to do so, but of
      course all the members of the Central Committee would have to give
      their consent). Plekhanov was entirely sympathetic to this plan, as a
      last attempt to find some sort of mode of living with the
      “quarrelsome wife”. When, in a letter to Plekhanov on
      November 6, 1903, I expressed the opinion that perhaps he was simply
      going to hand over the editorial board to the Martovites, he replied
      (on November 8):
      "...You seem to have a wrong idea of my intentions. I explained them
      again yesterday to Comrade Vasilyev” (theCentral Committee member who had attended the League
      Congress). Writing to this same Comrade Vasilyev on November 10 about
      whether to expedite or delay the 52nd issue ofIskra,
      containing a statement about the Congress, Plekhanov said:
      "... Publishing anything about the Congress means either 1)
      announcing that Martov and the others are not taking part inIskra, or 2) refusln  this request of Mar- toy’s—in
      which case he will announce it himself in a special leaflet. In either
      case it would bring the split to the knowledge of the public,and
	that is exactly what we have to avoid just now”(my
      italics—N.L.).On November 17, Plekhanov wrote to the
      same comrade: "... What would you say to the immediate
      co-optation of Martov and the others? I am beginning to think that
      this would be the way to settle the matter with the least
      difficulty.I do not want to act without you..."(Plekhanov’s
      italics).

Thesequotations show clearly that Plekhanov was trying to act
      in agreement with the majority, and wanted to co-opt the editors
      solely for the sake of peace and on the condition of peace, and
      not for the purpose of war against the majority. If it has
      worked out the other way, that only goes to show that the cart
      of anarchistic individualism bad got rolling too recklessly in
      the tactics of boycott and disruption; the strongest brakes
      could not hold it back. That is a great pity, of course, and
      Plekhanov, who sincerely wanted peace, has landed in an
      unpleasant position; but that is no reason for putting all the
      blame on me.

Asto Plekhanov’s statement that I was willing to keep quiet in return
      for a suitable “equivalent”, and his proud declaration,
      “I did not see fit to purchase his silence”, this
      polemical trick only makes a comical impression when compared with
      the words I have just quoted from his letter of November 10. It was
      Plekhanov who attached the utmost importance to silence, to keeping
      the split from the knowledge of the

			       public.[2]What more natural
      than that I shouldtell him I agreed to that too, provided there was peace? This talk
      about “equivalents” and “purchases” leads one
      to expect that next time Plekhanov will inform the public that Lenin
      is forging currency for transactions of this kind. That sort of thing
      has happened, after all, in our 6migr6 quarrels—and the present
      atmosphere is conducive to it.

ComradePlekhanov’s letter involuntarily leads one to wonder
      whether he is not now having topurchasethe right to
      be in the minority. The tactics of the minority in our so-
      called Party organ are already quite clear. What they are trying
      to do is obscure the controversial issues and the facts which
      really led to our divergence. They are trying to show that
      Martynov was far closer toIskrathan Lenin— just
      how, where and to what extent the muddled editors of the newIskrawill be a long time endeavouring to explain. They
      hypocritically condemn dragging personalities into the
      controversy, while actually their whole struggle is one big
      campaign against an individual, in which they do not even
      hesitate to ascribe to the “enemy” pernicious
      qualities of the most incompatible kind—from the crassest
      pig-headedness to the most cowardly evasiveness. Anything to
      make it good and strong. And those new allies, Comrades
      Plekhanov and Martov, make it so good and strong that they will
      soon be no whit behind the famous Bundists with their famous
      epithet—"scum”. They are bombarding me so fiercely
      from their battleships that I am beginning to wonder whether
      this is not a conspiracy of two-thirds of the dreadful
      trio. Ought I not to pose as injured too? Ought I not to cry out
      about a “state of siege"? That is sometimes so convenient
      and so useful, you know....

Tobe sure, to become a true minority man Comrade Plekhanov has
      still, I would say, to take two little steps: first, to avow
      that the formulation of Paragraph I of the Rules advocated by
      Comrades Martov and Axelrod at the Congress (and so zealously
      hushed up by them now) constitutes, not a step towards
      opportunism, not a surrender to bourgeois individualism, but
      the germ of new, truly Social-Democratic, Akimov-Martov and
      Martynov-Axelrod organisational views; and, secondly, to avow
      that the struggle with the minority since the Congress has not
      been a struggle against gross violations of Party discipline,
      against methods ofagitation that only arouse disgust, not a struggle against anarchism
      and anarchistic phraseology (see pp. 17, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 104,
      etc., etc., of the League Minutes), but a struggle against a
      “state of siege”, bureaucracy, formalism, and so forth.

Ishall deal at length with controversial issues of this kind in a
      pamphlet I am now preparing for the press. Meanwhile
      ... meanwhile let us scan the gallery of Gogol types opened in the columns
      of our leading organ, which is making a practice of presenting its
      readers with conundrums. Who resembles a stiff-necked Sobakevich
      treading on everybody’s vanity—I beg pardon, their corns? Who is
      like an evasive Chichikov purchasing silence as well as dead souls?
      Who are like Nozdrev and Khlestakov, Manilov and Skvoznik

 Dmukbanovsky?[3]Interesting and edifying puzzles....
      "A controversy over principles...."

[1]In his zeal for accuracy, Comrade Plekhanov overdoes it a little when
he says: Plekhanov had no right todecideon co-optation, foraccording to the Rules co-optation has to be unanimous. This is not a
correction, but a quibble, for what the Rules forbid in the absence of
unanimity is definite organisationalactions, and notdecisions—whichsome people are all too prone to adopt for
appearances’ sake, without following them up with action.  —Lenin

[2]A propos, it was Plekhanov who was so insistent about with
holding publication of the League Minutes and theconcluding partof the Party Congress Minutes—the part where he says that he takes upon
himself full moral responsibility for a direct vote against the old
so-called editorial board, and expresses the hope that the Party has not
grown poor in literary forces—a statement which one member of the
minority called a pompous phrase in pseudo-classical style.  —Lenin

[3]Characters in Gogol’sDead SoulsandInspector-General.